A tough act to follow

As Paul Simon once declared: 'Gee, but it's great to be back home.' I'm glad not to have to worry about paying £5 each morning before 09.00 so my car could avoid the 'clamp', climbing 5 flights of steps to get back to my shoe box of a room in the Henry Price Building, at the University of Leeds, worrying if I have any shower water, trying to find a power socket to recharge my laptop battery, etc... But ALT-C this year, to echo the sentiments of one Thomas Franklin, was probably the best I have attended. Here are my own personal highlights:

An excellent opening keynote speech by Hans Rosling left the audience buzzing, and seemed to inspire just about everyone I talked to. His incisive wit and insightful perspectives on world economic, social and health trends, his use of eye catching software and memorable madcap antics, his masterful melding together of all these elements with e-learning to produce something that was meaningful and resonant with all delegates, was one of the highlights of the conference.

The ad hoc, disorganised, crazy and yet totally relevant and (b)leading edge debates, discussions, conversations and fiery toe-to-toe stand up arguments of the ALT Fringe (F-ALT), were unmissable. In fact I feel a little sorry for those who couldn't be there because they had to be witnessed to be believed. The F-ALT badges were much in evidence everywhere I looked, yet there were only 40 in the limited edition. Coupled with this, another highlight was taking part in the live radio podcast of Sounds of the Bazaar, hosted by Graham Attwell and Josie Fraser.

Several workshops, including James Clay's "It's a Web 2.0 World out there..." and Frances Bell et al's "Digital Divide Slam" were enjoyable on every dimension, and some very interesting and valuable artefacts were created which will serve the Educommunity for some months to come. Our own humble contribution on the digital gender divide "It's not for girls", is already a popular YouTube video and it's less than 24 hours old.

Crowdvine triumphed as the online success story of the conference, and at the close of the event, 441 members had registered and created profiles (there were a total of 700 delegates this year). Crowdvine was used prior to the conference, and during it, to enable delegates to connect, converse, share and compare. And talking of online resources - if the photos in this blog post are not enough for you there is a veritable treaure chest of images on the Twemes ALT-C Site, and also even more in the personal Flickr photstreams of James Clay, Sam Easterby-Smith, Helen Keegan, Josie Fraser, Emma Duke-Williams and Cristina Costa, and my own to name just a few.

The final highlight for me was the Gala Dinner held at Yorkshire County Cricket Ground - Headingly. The iconic surroundings, delightful and passionate company of so many delegates, and the almost immaculate presentation of the 5 course dinner by the young people from the catering colleges, were... well, unforgettable.

The organisation of the event was, as ever, superb, efficient and friendly, so our thanks must go out to Seb, Marion, Mark and the ALT team for their almost hurculean efforts to hold everything together. The programme committee must also take their share of the limelight. Here's to next year's event, which will have a tough act to follow...